Over 300 of the closed pubs of Bolton from the 19th century to today. Lost but not forgotten. Use your local pub and stop this list from lengthening.

Friday, 7 August 2015

Newport Vaults, 104 Newport Street

The
Newport Vaults were situated at 104 Newport Street in premises that can still
be seen today.

The
first mention we have of the pub is 1869 when landlord James Crompton was
placing advertisements in the Bolton Evening News advertising to

“his friends and
the public generally that he has Opened a FREE and EASY for Singing and
Reciting on Saturday and Monday Evenings at Six o’clock.”

Mindful of the religious sensitivities if the time Mr Crompton advertised a programme of “Sacred Music”
on Sundays. [1]

Perhaps people didn’t flock to James Crompton’s ‘Free and Easy’
sessions because by the time the Bolton Directory of 1871 was published Joseph
Hague was in charge.

In his book Bolton Pubs 1800-2000, Gordon Readyhough tells us that the Newport Vaults was a
Tong’s house. [2] However, one of the landlords in the 1890s was Wilbraham Leach,
who was there in 1891. Mr Leach was just 24 and was a member of the Leach
family of brewers who ran the Albert on Derby Street. It begs the question as
to whether the Newport Vaults was also one of Leach’s pubs. Mr Leach went on to
run the Clifton Arms, just five doors away, a few years later.

By
the turn of the twentieth century the Gavagan family were in control of the
Newport Vaults. John Gavagan was born in County Roscommon, Ireland in 1874 and
by 1901 he was at the Newport along with his wife Margaret (nee Waterhouse -
born Bolton in 1880), their two children, John’s brother, who worked as a navvy,
and a number of boarders.

John
Gavagan died in 1912. Margaret took over the pub and remained as licensee for
the rest of its existence as a pub. She married William Yates in 1914 and when
the couple decided to leave the pub in 1924 Tong’s closed it down. The building
became retail premises and have remained so ever since.

The image above shows number 104 Newport Street. A pub for over 50 years the premises were Planet Pizza when this image was taken in 2008 (copyright Google Street View). It is still (2015) a takeaway but re-named McIndian.